


Fisherman's son

by emocezi



Series: The Coppertail Chronicles [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-20 01:22:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22074052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emocezi/pseuds/emocezi
Summary: Of all the things he’d expected to pull up in his nets today, Cody thinks, a real life, honest to goodness merman was NOT one of them.  The thing is screeching at him in a tone that hurts his ears, makes him want to clap his hands over them to block out the sound, but if he doesn’t get the damn mer back in the water, he’s pretty sure the shark…men? circling his fishing boat are going to lose patience real fast and fix this issue with extreme prejudice.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex, CT-21-0408 | Echo/CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555
Series: The Coppertail Chronicles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588879
Comments: 14
Kudos: 310





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ha ha!! I don't know what to even say here other than I hope you guys enjoy the weirdness!!

Of all the things he’d expected to pull up in his nets today, Cody thinks, a real life, honest to goodness merman was NOT one of them. The thing is screeching at him in a tone that hurts his ears, makes him want to clap his hands over them to block out the sound, but if he doesn’t get the damn mer back in the water, he’s pretty sure the shark…men? circling his fishing boat are going to lose patience real fast and fix this issue with extreme prejudice.

He grits his teeth, pulls out his filet knife, and steps forward to cut the net from the mer that’s still making one hell of a racket.

“WOULD YOU SHUT UP.” Cody yells back and it seems to shock the thing into silence for at least a few moments before it starts screeching again. He snarls and grits his teeth and grabs a handful of net, slicing it open, trying to ignore the ominous splashing in the water.

“Codes, look out!” His first mate, a man who goes by the name Echo(Cody’s known the guy for six years and still doesn’t know his first name) grabs a fishing gaff, using it to ward off the shark mer that had launched its self into the boat and was steadily squirming towards the mer in the net.

“Get it off the boat.” Cody yells back and grabs the net, hauling the mer away from the vicious looking creature that’s hissing and spitting water at Echo.

“I’m fucking trying, man.” Echo yells back and stabs the shark in the arm, not hard enough to do any real harm, but it makes the shark start pushing itself back into the water, watching the two men with a newfound respect.

“We can’t put this guy back in the water, with those assholes swimming around.” Cody decides. "He probably swam into our net to get away from them.“

Echo shudders and goes to start the engine. The second the rumble of it is felt on the boat deck, the mer in the nets starts to thrash, calling out in a tone that Cody can tell is full of terror. It’s answered by the sharks and Cody holds up a hand to Echo. "Wait. Wait. I think maybe, they’re trying to free him.”

“Yeah, boss. So they can eat him.” 

“I’m not so sure.” Cody takes a breath and hauls the mer closer to the water, slicing the net free and watching, already wincing in anticipation of the blood shed when the mer throws its self into the water and the sharks circle close.

Instead of the blood and thrashing Cody had expected, the mer is carefully looked over by the sharks, and the blonde one gives Cody what he’s assuming is a nod of thanks before they all dive down into the depths.

“You know.” Echo pulls off his hat, running a hand over hair that desperately needs a cut. "No one’s gonna believe this.“

“Which is why you shouldn’t go running your mouth.” Cody says tiredly. “You start talking about mers you’re gonna get hauled off and thrown in the loony bin.” Echo snorts and then sighs, looking down at the ruined net.

“S'pose we’re gonna call it a day then?”

“Yeah.” Cody shoves the mass of webbing with his boot. "Grab me some coffee from below deck, I’m gonna get this mess cleaned up.“

XxX XxX

Cody ties up his trawler at the dock and waves Echo off, turning his attention back to the ruined net. It’ll take some time to repair, maybe a few days tops, and it’ll certainly be cheaper than buying a new one, especially when he’s already running low on funds. 

Taking on Echo had been a gamble, and one he’s still not sure is going to pay off. It’s been a slow season, and while the extra pair of hands had been appreciated, the money being passed into those hands stung Cody’s empty pockets.

Something knocks against the hull of the trawler while he’s hosing down the deck and Cody ignores it. Probably just a wayward sea lion that’s trying to gnaw off some barnacles.

The knocking sounds again and this time Cody shuts off the water and moves cautiously over to the side of the trawler, peering over the lip and looking down into the face of the blonde shark who’d nodded at him.

"Uh. Hi.” He gets a grunt and then a fish is raised out of the water on the tip of a spear. "Thanks?“ Cody offers, carefully taking the fish. Another one follows and Cody takes that one too, than a third, and a fourth, and by the time a fifth fish is hoisted into the air Cody is getting suspicious. "I don’t need this many.” He tries telling the mer who grunts and shoves the fish into his face. "Fine. Fine. I’ll take it. But no more.“

That gets another grunt, and when the spear is raised again, there’s no fish on it. Rather a golden bracelet with an enormous sapphire set into it sits on the tip of the spear. "Oh. Wow. Thank you, but I can’t accept this.” He says, getting an angry grunt from the mer and the spear dancing in his face until he finally takes the dang bracelet so the mer will stop splashing. "Look. You should probably go before someone sees you.“

"I’ll be back later.” The mer says and slips under the water before Cody can react to the fact that the damn thing speaks the same language as him and he’d made a fool out of himself trying to communicate.

XxX XxX

Houses are too expensive in the little fishing hamlet of Coral-salt Cove, and Cody’s long since had below decks refurnished into living quarters. He has a kitchenette, a shower, a laundry machine, and a queen sized bed stuffed into the corner by one of the portholes. He likes to fall asleep listening to the waves lapping at the hull, wrapped up in warm blankets with chilly sea air filling his room.

And tonight is no different. Except there’s a weird sound that’s starting to slither into his brain and he wakes slowly, rubbing at his eyes before he realizes something is knocking at the hull.

“G'way. ’M sleeping.” He yells it and settles back down, only to hear a massive splash and then the blond shark mer from earlier is wigging himself through the porthole and flopping down on Cody’s bed, far heavier than he looks and pinning Cody in place with a massive tail flopped over his legs. Cody goes absolutely still and vows that if he lives through this he’ll never keep the porthole open while he’s sleeping again.

“This is soft.” The mer tells him in accented English and Cody offers a high pitched noise in response. "I wanted to say thank you, for rescuing my one earlier. And to tell you to stay away from the fishing grounds you were at yesterday. They’re spawning grounds for mers.“

"Got it.” Cody agrees, nodding hastily. "No more fishing on the wayward side of the island. I’ll make sure everyone knows.“

"Good.” The mer cocks it’s head. "You’re not bad looking. For a human.“ It leans forward, presses a cold wet, mouth to Cody’s lips, and then hauls itself back out the porthole, entering the water with a massive splash. 

Cody sits up and closes the porthole, locking it in place and then makes a face at his blankets now covered in water and weird goo. "I need a new job.”


	2. Chapter 2

They caught the bulletin of the storm two late. About an hour too late. 

Three hours out when the call came in, and two hours from the coast when the storm hits them. Waves as high as buildings, the blackness of the storm only broken up by the near useless boat lights and blinding flashes of lightening.

The water churns angrily around the little trawler, as if it wants nothing more than to slap the boat under the waves, swallow it up for the insolence of daring to sail.

"HOLD ONTO SOMETHING.” Cody screams it to Echo who grabs onto the side of the trawler as the little ship chugs its way up a wave that seems to grow and grow and grow.

“Lord have mercy.” Echo whispers, crossing himself as best he can, and then the wave crests and crashes down like the furious hand of god on the little vessel and they’re underwater before they even know what hit them, the ships lights flickering as the boat goes down down down.

Cody grabs Echo, inflating the life vests they’d both put on and letting them pull the two to the surface, where they bob like ducks on an angry sea.

“WE’RE NOT GONNA MAKE IT.” Echo yells, voice nearly stolen by the wind though he’s right beside Cody, the two clinging to each other even as the waves pummel them, looking for any hint of weakness to separate the two.

“IF I THOUGHT WE WERE DEAD MEN I WOULDN’T HAVE PUT MY LIFE JACKET ON.” Cody screams back. "THE STORM WILL PASS, WE JUST HAVE TO OUTLAST IT.“

Lightening splits the sky and through the torrential downpour and blinding winds, Cody sees a fin slicing through the water. 

Well. Fuck.

"SHARK.” He screams at Echo who’s coughing up water.

“OF COURSE THERE’S A FUCKING SHARK. WHY WOULDN’T THERE BE A FUCKING SHARK ON THE WORST DAY OF OUR LIVES.” Echo screams back, and if they live, Cody is going to buy him so many fucking beers.

He looses track of the thing when the sky goes black again, trying not to kick too much, trying not to seem like something wounded.

For a moment, he’s hoping, praying that maybe the shark mer that’s been bringing him fish twice a week will find them, that he somehow figured out their boat went down. But they’re so far out of the mer’s territory that any hope of that has long since gone down with their boat.

He feels something bump against his legs and kicks out, making contact with a hard body, adrenaline rushing through his veins when the goddamn thing bumps him again.

“Oh FUCK.” Echo’s kicking too, suddenly pale. "FUCKING THING BIT ME.“

"YOU’LL BE OKAY.” Cody lies. There’s blood in the water now, and for a moment, he thinks of letting Echo go, of saving himself. But he’s not that kind of man, he never will be. "JUST HOLD ONTO ME.“

Without any warning, the sea around them goes blood red with gore and Cody’s blood goes cold in his veins, hands dipping under the water to see how bad the damage is. Echo’s eyes are so huge that the whites of them seem to glow in the night. 

"NOT ME.” He screams it. "IT’S NOT ME.“ He’s intact. Cody can feel both legs, hopes there’s still something left below Echo’s knees. 

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS IT?” He screams back, and before Echo can speak, a familiar head pops out of the water. 

“ARE YOU HURT?”

“IT BIT MY LEG.” Echo yells back.

“WELL I’M GLAD I KILLED IT THEN.” The mer gives Echo a grin with far too many sharp teeth. "NOBODY BITES MY ONE BUT ME.“

"I-I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.” 

“WOULD YOU STOP FLIRTING AND GET US TO SHORE.” Cody yells, absolutely done with today. The mer rolls eyes and then passes them both the net he’d pulled from Cody’s sunken trawler.

“GET YOURSELVES WRAPPED UP IN THIS. I’LL TOW YOU BACK.”

The two men slowly, bodies sluggish and aching from the cold water, wrap themselves up in the net so they won’t get swept away and the mer takes the ropes, winding them around his hands as he dives back down and starts to move with the currents, back to the shoreline, and home.

Normally, no sane mer would be out this far in open water unless there was a migration. But Rex had put a guard on the boat, and it was Fives’ shift today. He’d be damned if he told anyone he’d bribed Rex to put him on shift, given the way the ocean current had foretold the oncoming storm.

Hell, for saving the Cody, Fives is pretty sure Rex is going to give him a damn title once he gets the two humans back to shore.

They’re an hour out when the net starts to feel funny and Fives resurfaces. Both humans are still wrapped around in it, but they’re not moving, and Fives feels a stirring of panic. The ocean is cold today, even to a mer. To a human, it must be freezing.

“Whale fucking dolphin kisser.” Fives curses and then dives back down, praying to Poseidon that he’ll get to shore before the humans freeze solid.

He pushes himself to his limits, calling out to a fellow mer when he gets close enough, and passing them off with an explanation, the fresh mer hauling caudal fin to get them to shore, Fives following at a more sedate pace, trying to work out the cramps in his tail, and sucking in huge gill fulls of water. He hasn’t put that much physical effort into anything since he had to prove himself worthy of being a royal guard.

He passes a smaller cousin, a nurse shark named Tup and grabs him. "Go get Rex and Kenobi. Tell them there was an accident with the fishing boat. The humans are…I don’t know if they’re okay.“

Tup pales and nods, swimming off with a flash of pale fin, hair flowing behind him.

Fives gets to the shore line at the same time as Rex and Kenobi do, half the royal court in attendance as the humans are carefully hauled out of the water. They’re both cold to the touch, and no mer present has any idea of human anatomy to know if they’re alive or dead. 

"We just found you.” Kenobi whispers, brushing fingers over Cody’s strange facial scar. "You can’t leave us already.“

"Someone get the sea witch.” Rex calls and several mer splash off to do his bidding. The rain, thank Poseidon, has stopped, but still the humans don’t move. Kenobi fights with the buckles and straps until Rex simply cuts the strange garments off with a volcanic glass knife, allowing for Kenobi to place his ear over Cody’s diaphragm, where a mer’s heart would lay.

“I….I don’t hear anything.”

“Oh no.” Fives whispers it and hauls himself out of the water to stroke a hand over his one’s hair. "Oh no. Don’t do this to me.“

The sea-witch arrives a few moments later, a bag of potions strapped to her back. "Humans?” She looks at the two lying on the drenched sand. "No one told me it was humans. You’re probably better off just letting them die.“ But she pulls open her satchel and starts to pull out bottles and clam shells and empty sea urchin shells. 

She takes a glass rescued from a shipwreck and fills it with a dark liquid, adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that, mixing it up and yanking up Cody’s head.

"Be careful with him.” Rex snarls it and Padme gives him a cautious look and gentles her touch, holding the cup to his lips and pouring a bit of her concoction into his mouth, massaging his throat to trigger his swallowing reflex. She does the same to Echo, pouring the rest of the mixture over their bare chests. 

“They might be too cold for this to work.” She tells the large group of mers, having grown larger since she arrived, news traveling through the water faster than an oil slick. "Humans aren’t meant to be in the water for long periods of time. It damages them. That’s why they don’t mix well with us.“ 

Everyone knows Padme had a forbidden affair with a human teenager, and everyone knows he tried to take her from the ocean, that he comes to her cove and leaves her fish, long brown hair and a scar over his left eye. 

Padme has never liked humans after the human betrayed her heart.

Time passes and the cloud fade away to blue sky and mers start to leave, to go back about their business, the process of saving the humans taking too long. And finally, finally Echo makes a quiet, barely audible whimpering sound. 

"Give him this.” Padme thrusts a clump of seaweed into Five’s hands and he carefully tips Echo’s head up, pressing seaweed against Echo’s lips, murmuring quietly to him to eat. That he has to eat and he’ll feel better.

“I’m so cold.” Echo whispers it. "Please. I’m so cold.“

"I know. I know. But if you eat this you’ll warm up.” Echo’s eyes slide open, hazy and unfocused and the same beautiful shade of the setting sun, and he opens his mouth, lazily chewing and swallowing.

“You should take his pants off.” Padme says dryly and Fives looks over at her, an angry retort on his lips when Echo arches up under his hands, clutching his stomach and groaning.

“What did you do to him? What did you give him?”

“I gave him a form of a plant called gill-weed. That, mixed with the potion he had earlier, is going to save his life.”

“What about Cody?” Rex snarls, still caressing his human’s face. "Why isn’t he moving?“

"He might have been too weak to survive the trip back to shore.” Padme says and shuffles over to put her hand on Cody’s chest. "Ah, nope. I feel his heart. You’re in luck, he should be waking up soon.“

As if on cue, Cody rolls over and vomits up water. Rex gently hauls the human up into his arms, cradling him against Rex’s painfully dry chest. "Gillyweed.” He snaps, holding out his hand, not even looking at Padme.

“Please.” Kenobi adds on, offering Padme a smile. "We are in your debt.“ 

"Making two new mers out of some half dead humans? You bet your caudal fins you’re in my debt.” Padme says pleasantly and passes over the gillyweed, watching while Rex feeds it to Cody, and Fives cuts the pants, underwear, and boots off of Echo.

“What the hell is that?” Kenobi blurts out and Fives shrugs, poking at limp snake between Echo’s legs. 

“Human’s have external genitalia.” Padme says, sounding bored. "Now, if you don’t mind. I have some important spells to check up on. I’ll be back later to give you my bill. Your majesties. “ She gives a bow to Kenobi and Rex and slips soundlessly into the water, swimming back to her cave.

Kenobi and Rex make quick work out of Cody’s bottom wear, watching in fascination as their human legs fuse together, as they grow gills, and fins and the sharp angles of human bodies slim down into the streamlined form of new mers.

"Lets get them into the water.” Kenobi says, and the mers that stayed in the water now crowd up onto the beach to help bring the new mers down into the water.

Cody has taken on the stocky, powerful build and tail of a lemon shark, the golden tail meshing well with his beautiful dark skin.

Echo has the sharp, deadly silver and blue tail of a mako. Slender and the most beautiful thing Fives has ever seen. 

Slowly, the new mers are lowered into the water, and it’s only when the water covers their faces, and that first inhale, that fills the gills and the lungs, that the two start to thrash, the human fear of drowning over taking the realization that they can breathe, and they’re held down so they won’t hurt themselves with their thrashing or anyone else. Echo is the first one to calm, eyes popping open and staring up at the sky, and then at Fives through the water. "I know you.“

"I should hope so.” Fives laughs. "We’re engaged.“

"When did we get engaged?’ Echo murmurs, floating and finally warm. "Is this heaven?”

“You spilled my blood.” Fives tells him. "Proved yourself worthy of me.“

"Okay.” Echo murmurs and closes his eyes. He doesn’t feel like he’s on death’s doorstep anymore, he can deal with whatever else is coming his way. Just later.

Cody takes longer to calm, and it’s finally Kenobi, who cups Cody’s face and blows a careful breath into his lungs, that stops him from thrashing and struggling. He goes limp, sinking down to the sandy seabed and looking up at the mers that surround him, all wearing friendly, curious faces, and finally at the blonde mer who sinks down to lay beside him.

“How do you feel?”

“Like hell.” Cody croaks it. "What happened?“

"You were dying.” Rex says, reaching out to smooth a hand over Cody’s chest. "We had to change you, from human kind, to one of us.“

"Oh.” Cody takes a careful breath, coughing a little as sore lungs, unused to water, fill. For a moment he can’t breathe again and then his gills flare open, oxygen flooding through his blood and he’s breathing again, but he’s breathing from his neck and Cody reaches up to poke the gill slits, wincing a bit.

“Careful.” Rex grabs his hand. "You’ll find those are sensitive.“

Cody lets himself go limp again, exhausted from everything. "Echo.” He murmurs it, and then forces himself up, fighting the water. "Echo!“

"He’s right here.” Fives calls out and Cody looks over. "He’s okay, just resting.“

"Like you should be.” Kenobi says primly. "You’ve been through a great deal in a short time. You’re going to be very tired for a long time. Just rest, and let us take care of you, Cody.“ His voice is warm, fond, and he trails a finger over Cody’s scar as he speaks. "You’re finally were you belong. Here, beside us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all I got!!! Hope you all enjoyed this wild ride!!


End file.
